Watching Faith
by knowregrets
Summary: Crossover with Stargate SG1. A collection of incidents told by Faith's, initially pompous, new Watcher. Some violence mostly to nonhumans and some sexual content in later chapters.
1. 1: Meeting Faith

**Meeting Faith**

_Disclaimer: none of this is mine._

_AN: Apologies for those of you who have been waiting for me to update Everyone Knows, I broke my wrist six weeks ago and have been unable to type. This plot bunny was forcing itself on me for virtually all that time so I had to write it as soon as I could. This is my first buffy fic, my first Stargate fic and my first crossover so please be kind to me! This chapter is fairly short, the crossover will begin in chapter 2 or 3 and the chapters will be longer._

I've heard the rumours, of course. I'll be the fourth Watcher Faith has had in the last year alone. I know that after the fall of Sunnydale she went to set up the new offices near the baby hellmouth in Cleveland with Robin Wood, her (at that time) lover but since their split, she has been acting as a roving US slayer, going through watchers like they are going out of fashion.

It's debatable whether Faith or Buffy counts as the longest surviving slayer. Everyone always assumes it's Buffy but, truthfully, Buffy didn't last much over a year before dieing the first time. Faith hasn't died yet, but her coma and spell in gaol probably count against her, time wise. Either way, I know she is one of the best at what she does; and the newer slayers respect her (even if they do fear her a bit too). On the face of it, seems ideal for her role, supporting the local US slayers and trouble shooting. The only downside is, she cannot keep a Watcher.

I was surprised to get this assignment, to be honest. I thought Mr Giles would want someone more experienced. I'm not of a Watcher family, I only found out about the hidden night life of the world a year ago when I was approached by an associate of Mr Giles who had been scouring universities for people with the right knowledge in a desperate attempt to rebuild their numbers, replacing all those who had died with enough people to help out the several hundred new slayers now appearing throughout the world.

I figured I'd get a junior assignment to start with. I only finished my Ph.D. last year (the Occult Influence on the Development of Indo-European Languages). If I knew then what I know now … well, suffice it to say, I would have ripped up my thesis and started from scratch. So I thought I'd be a Junior Watcher in a city where several Slayers lived, or that they'd keep me at headquarters – there's some really fascinating sounding work on cross-pollination of demon and human languages that was lost when the old council building went kaboom that it'd be fun to try and re-create (I'm a little geek-like – sue me).

When I heard Faith needed another new Watcher, I assumed that they'd send someone with way more experience, not to mention a working knowledge of US geography – about which I know diddley-squat, apart from New York is somewhere on the right and LA somewhere on the left. Oh and Alaska is big and empty and hangs off the side of Canada, while Florida dangles off the bottom somewhere. Not the most practical of knowledge I grant you. I have been to America once before, New York actually. I was twelve and spent practically the whole time in various museums. Somehow I don't think that experience will come in handy either.

Still, I have a map, a driving licence, passport and Council credit card good for plane fares. We will somehow navigate our way to where we want to be, of that I'm sure. If only I had any confidence at all that I knew what I was doing.

I couldn't help but ask Mr Giles why on earth he chose me for this, but his answers were not terribly illuminating, to be honest. Apparently he thought someone younger might "relate" to Faith better – how long did he spend living in America again? He has either been infected or he has, hitherto unsuspected, hippy roots. His only other comment was that I was reasonably athletic and could handle weapons with passable skill. Needless to say I was hardly buoyed up by this less than effusive praise.

So here I am, jet-lagged and (if I'm honest) slightly hung-over. Somewhere in a strange country where people seem to speak a form of the English language I am familiar with only through film and television. Meeting a girl who, despite being barely an inch taller than me could, probably literally, kick my arse straight back to England without breaking a sweat.

"I don't have the best luck with Watchers," she tells me calmly. "Three have died, I tortured one, boinked another and the others have run off home with tails between their legs."

To be honest I'm not sure how to respond to this statement. Still, it's not like I didn't know this already. I shrug and reply, "Well if you can promise to neither 'boink' or torture me, I'll promise not to run away and we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed on not dieing thing."


	2. 2: Things I have Learnt

**Things I have learnt**

_Disclaimer: none of this is mine._

_Author's note: I apologise that I forgot to mention at the start of the first chapter that this is an OC talking. I also apologise for any mistakes in the Greek in this chapter. I am completely ignorant of Greek myself and, although I asked advice, I take full responsibility if it is "word soup". The crossover starts next chapter._

It's been nearly eleven months since I became Faith's watcher. Eleven months during which I don't think I've been either completely clean or totally undamaged at any point. Although, touch wood, I have only broken one bone and have sprained one of my ankles only three times in total. OK I've sprained the other one four times but still, credit where credit is due, most of my injuries have been dealt with by bandages or a couple of stitches. And they are getting slightly less frequent.

I've become an expert in getting demon gunk out of clothing (something I bet not many of my old university friends could say) and have learnt never to try and save money by sharing a motel room with Faith – unless I want to spend the night sitting in the corridor outside the room with my laptop while Faith entertains someone called "Chuck".

And Faith's come a long way too. I can remember the first time I persuaded her that I could come along and be a help to her rather than a hindrance. A group of nearly 200 D'Fanin demons had gathered in a town somewhere in Texas (I think) for a religious ceremony. Now I'm all for religious freedom, normall,but, when a ceremony involves the consumption of human hearts freshly harvested from a still living body, I tend to draw a line. There was a local slayer, but she had been beaten quite badly by some of the D'Fanin, before she realised the extent of their numbers, so we had flown halfway across the country to take them out while she recovered strength.

"So what's the plan?" I had asked.

"We go, we slay," she replied shortly.

"That's not much of a plan, Faith, more of a mission statement." She looked at me oddly so I continued, "I mean, I'd be quite happy to have that printed on business cards, it's quite catchy really, but before we enter a building filled with 200 demons, I'd like something a little more detailed."

"Like what?"

"Well, I could take the four on the right, you take the 196 on the left, for example."

"And what happens when some of the 196 don't realise they are supposed to fight me and go after you?"

She had a point. That could have easily led to the 'death thing' for me, which we are trying to avoid. "OK," I admitted, "maybe I hadn't quite thought that plan through to its logical conclusion but, at least it was, you know, an actual plan, just not a particularly good one."

The planning thing has really come a long way since then. Actually, I think Faith enjoys it now. Some people (mentioning no names Mr Giles) even think our plans have become a little too elaborate at times. But, I have to say, sliding down an improvised zip-wire, with a flame-thrower, over a warehouse full of vamps, is an experience every Watcher should have, not to mention, extremely effective and fairly safe (well, except for that vamp armed with a crossbow because that bolt through my shoulder hurt). And I still want to find a situation where we can use the 'priest blessing the water in the sprinkler system while we set of the fire alarm' idea. We haven't been able to use it yet so we are keeping it in reserve. I might have forgotten to mention that idea to Mr Giles yet. Oh well, he'd only forbid us to do it so I'll keep it quiet until we have a chance to work out the kinks in the idea and try it out.

Faith and I are actually making a better team than I think either one of us expected. We are very different people, with very different skills. Still we share the same sense of humour and that makes a big difference. I can't help but thinking Faith tolerates me, more than actually respects me but I can live with that. And it has been interesting travelling around the States meeting various Watchers and Slayers stationed all over. Several Watchers have mentioned recently that we are building a fairly big reputation in the US demon community and I have noticed that getting information out of demons is getting easier now when Faith's name is mentioned.

I hate to say it, though, but I think Mr Giles is slightly less impressed with us. According to Dawn (who I met when she spent one summer in England, Watcher training) he makes a 'clucking sound' with his tongue every time he gets an e-mail report from me. This is, apparently, not a positive sign. When Faith and I went to Cape Town last month for the annual Memoriam, I spent the weekend trying to avoid him. Faith spent the weekend trying to avoid Buffy and some slayer I don't know called Kennedy; so on several occasions we found ourselves hiding on the same balcony or even, at one point, in the same broom cupboard.

On one balcony an army colleague of Buffy's ex-boyfriend joined us. Apparently he'd just heard his transfer was approved to another US military project and was trying to avoid his CO who had brought him and another couple of colleagues along and was, reportedly, a little upset by the transfer. I believe the phrase "pissed as hell" was used. According to Faith, Mr 'tall, dark and muscles' had stamina; and that weekend turned out to be yet another occasion where I can personally attest that hotel walls are, for the most part, too thin.

You know I think I'm giving the erroneous impression that Faith is overly promiscuous. She isn't, really. She is just a Slayer and, as such, has a large amount of energy that needs to be released. While some Slayers can channel these energies through meditation or doing katas; neither of these are Faith's thing so there are times she needs to release that energy in other ways; and this one is harmless enough – as long as I remember to get rooms on different sides of whichever hotel/motel we are staying in.

We are currently on the West Coast of the States, in a place called Cosmopolis, investigating reports by a local slayer that an abnormally large number of vampires seem to be coming through the area, stopping to feed, usually on young children, before moving on elsewhere. In the last few weeks she has probably killed more vampires than she has seen in the year before that which certainly seems like something that needs to be checked out.

We've been here a couple of days now, and both Faith and I agree that something big is going down somewhere. Unfortunately, apart from the fact the vampires seem to be heading South/South-West, that's all we've got so far. Faith has spent the day with the local slayer, Ally, touring the demon haunts in local towns looking for information, while Ally's watcher, Jacob, and I have spent the time going over the data they have gathered, trying to determine where the vampires might be heading and why. It has not been the most productive of days and when the four of us sat down for a quick bite to eat this evening, it didn't take us long to discover we had made virtually no progress.

We decided that we needed to be a bit more direct if we wanted any information at all and question some of the visitors themselves. Ally and Jacob headed into Aberdeen to the hospital, which seems to be a stopping off point for many of the visiting vampires; and Faith and I stayed to patrol some of the areas in Cosmopolis where the vampires have been seen. Given the situation reported by Jacob, it is not terribly surprising when a quick sweep of the cemetery hits pay dirt. There are ten of them, so we take out some with fairly rapid kills leaving Faith fighting two with a capture rather than kill strategy.

Capturing vampires is significantly harder than killing them, and one of our two potential captives is staked by accident before Faith manages to subdue the final one.

I find the sort of questioning that we need to do on occasion, very distasteful, but I'd rather it was us than Ally and Jacob – Ally is way too young, in my opinion, to have to do this sort of thing. Swallowing my distaste, therefore, I dig out the holy water and pulled out the sun cross pendant I wear.

I have no problem killing vampires, no problem at all. To me they are just dead bodies that are still moving around, and we are normally in a 'kill or be killed' situation. But I can't help feeling slightly sick seeing the acid-like burns I am causing on the skin of this vampire, especially as he is keeping his human face. It is incredibly difficult to get him to talk. He is chained firmly to a tomb and Faith is watching my back as I, not to mince words, torture him. He is stubborn, and I feel better when he finally vamps out, it makes it easier somehow. It is never going to be easy, however, and I wouldn't want it to be.

Eventually the pain becomes too much for him and he screams out, "Syllegomen peri ten thallatan tes kales poles." I knew he wasn't local but it was a bit of a shock to hear him speak in Greek, after all, we are a on a completely different continent.

"What did he say?" Faith asks.

"Something about them going to the 'sea of the good city'," I respond and then turn back to my victim. "We, who are we?" I ask him.

"Lilin," he said, staring at me with hatred.

"What is/are Lilin?" I ask. I'm fairly sure I have heard the word before, although I can't recall where. He twists around furiously, ignoring my questions. "Who is going there? Why are you going there? Who are you meeting?"

Somehow he manages to get an arm free and I am forced to stake him. Just before he turns to dust he screamed out the name "Lilith".

Faith comes up behind me. "Should we try for some more tonight? See if they can give us any more information?"

I try to suppress my shudder. There is no way I can do more tonight. "No," I reply quietly. "I'm going to call Headquarters and see if they can fill in some of the gaps."

I start to feel a little smug and proud of myself when I realise I've come through the evening without a single new bruise, until I turn round as I am digging out my phone and trip over a tree root, knocking myself unconscious.


	3. 3: Information Gathering

_Disclaimer: None of this is mine_

_AN: Apologies for anyone upset by my shameless distortion of the Lilitu mythology. The Watchers Council obviously has far more information on Lilitu and the Lilin than the rest of us – that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! I also should note that I'm playing fast and loose with the timeline, this is set somewhere during the late fourth or early fifth season of Stargate even though it is about three years post-Chosen in BTVS_

From: D.Summers  
To: J. Fischer  
Subject: Urgent: Information gathering on the Lilin

Hi!

Following your recent call with Giles, he asked me to send you the following:

You were right, you have heard of the Lilin before, although they faded into relative obscurity some millennia ago, only occasionally resurfacing in small numbers (most recently in Greece about 200 years ago). They specialise in killing mothers and babies, hence the hospital attacks you have been chasing across the Western States.

About 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, there was a very powerful but corrupt Slayer who lead an army of vampires. She was known as Lilitu and her followers were the Lilin. They referred to her as their mother. What caused Lilitu to become corrupt is unknown. It was believed by some that she was possessed. There are reports of actual sightings of her for over two thousand years, during this time many slayers were called. Opinions vary but the most likely possibility is that she was, herself, turned, although she seems to have had some major powers that ordinary vampires did not so it is possible that she was possessed by some other form of demon. According to the Council's records, she was could not be killed, instead she was entombed.

The attached documents give more detail on the Lilin and on Lilitu herself. I have also attached a scan of part of a recently discovered codex. This codex appears to predict the return of Lilitu. This fits in with the rumours you have reported of the demon calling herself Lilith who appears to be gathering the Lilin. Lilith was, of course, the Hebrew name for Lilitu. I've attached our translation of the relevant passage of the codex – we are fuzzy on some of the words but, being a better linguist than me, you might be able to un-fuzz them. If your Lilith is the original Lilitu, we are in a world more trouble than we thought. Giles thinks, however, that this is unlikely.

Giles wishes me to stress that this is an information gathering trip only. Report back as soon as you have found anything. If the rumours are true, and someone has gathered the Lilin together in such numbers it will take more than one slayer to take them out. It is "imperative" (according to Giles) that we know what we are dealing with before we take action. Giles even went so far as to include the words "Faith" and "short rein" in the same sentence so good luck with that one. I should point out that he said "Oh dear Lord" six times during our conversation and I'm sure I could even hear him cleaning his glasses over the phone.

Say hi to Faith for me and try not to break or sprain anything.

Good luck and hope to hear from you soon,

Dawn

* * *

Well, this is a new situation. In the last 11 months working with Faith I've been threatened with a variety of weapons, not to mention been thrown, stabbed, shot with a crossbow (twice!) and bitten. No one has ever pointed a gun at me though. I can't say I'm really enjoying the novelty. It takes me a moment to realise that Faith is still watching the warehouse, that the slayer who prides herself on being able to sense supernatural danger with an instinct surpassing any other living slayer, is blissfully unaware that some military-looking people are standing there looking like they need very little excuse to blow our heads off.

"Faith," I say quietly.

"That weird glowy-eyed demon chick is definitely the skank in charge," she replies without even turning around. "We take her out, the rest will be easy pickings."

"Um, Faith," I continue, "we have company."

Faith takes her lead from me, dealing with authority the Watcher is always supposed to be in charge. I know Faith, however, and I'm pretty sure it won't be long before she is mouthing off to them. Their guns relax slightly as they realise we are standing there, quite obediently. Despite my assurances that Faith and I are there alone the woman, Carter, gets sent off to check the area.

"Who the hell are you?" the apparent leader, a tall greying man asks me. I reach for my ID only to find that I'm suddenly the renewed focus of the guns. "Hand in sight!" he orders me abruptly.

I roll my eyes. "Front, right-hand, jeans pocket," I tell him with a sigh.

"Daniel," he says, nodding his head towards me.

The younger man comes towards me nervously. He looks so embarrassed to be reaching into my pocket, desperately trying not to touch anything he shouldn't, that I can't help but channel Faith for a second.

"You're kinky," I tell him quietly. "I like it."

He practically jumps away from me, blushing. I can hear Faith suppressing a snort as he moves to grey-hair's side, handing him the black wallet housing my ID.

"Wanna do me too, blue-eyes?" Faith asks him. He looks pleadingly at his boss but receives only a nod as the older man checks my ID and frowns.

"Watchers' Council?" he asks me. "Who are they?"

"An international organisation that deals with situations like this," I tell him, trying to ignore Faith's grunting and "dig deeper baby" as the unfortunate man tries to retrieve an ID from a squirming Faith, who is refusing to tell him which pocket to look in. "If you contact the Pentagon number listed, this can all be sorted out."

"What did you mean, when you said you would take out the leader?" he asks Faith, ignoring my response.

"Well, I was thinking dinner and a movie, you know, get to know the chick before heading back to the hotel for a threesome," she responds. I briefly close my eyes; I don't think this is going to help.

Tall dark and silent then speaks for the first time. "Threesome?" he asks.

"Don't ask, don't tell, baby" Faith tells him with a wink.

"Faith," I warn her, and mercifully she shuts up for a moment.

* * *

We were jumped by a couple of vamps on the way to their van. Faith dusted them both (the Colonel and his friends were surprised that their guns didn't work so they were obviously not briefed on what is going on). Far from being grateful to Faith for saving their necks, they have disarmed, handcuffed and separated us, 'Carter' and the quiet guy who the Colonel called 'T – Murray', an obviously bad alias, have taken Faith into the rear compartment of the van, while I'm up front with grey-hair (who introduced himself as Colonel O'Neill) and the blushing blue-eyes (who is apparently called Doctor Jackson).

We've been round in circles a few times. They don't believe the "they were vampires and Faith dusted them with a piece of wood" explanation, nor will they swallow the "they were members of a gang on PCP who have a wood phobia so they ran away really quickly when Faith poked them" explanation (hey, it might have worked). The Colonel is refusing to phone the Pentagon number on our cards – honestly, that was why the number is there. Mr Giles did some heavy negotiating with the President and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and that number was the result, together with the freedom to act in any situation that comes under our jurisdiction within the United States. We have these sorts of arrangements with about 30 countries around the world now. But the Colonel seems to believe the number is a fake.

A moment ago, a bunch more of the Colonel's people turned up. The Colonel left the van to give the others instructions to check the area (his voice is clearly audible outside) leaving me alone with Dr blue-eyes who is looking very awkward.

"So, this is a nice van you have here," I say, trying to be pleasant. "All the amenities of home; if your home is a server room, with half a dozen televisions and no comfortable seating, that is."

His mouth twitches slightly. "I'm sorry about this," he says. "I'm sure you understand though, in a matter of, um, national security."

"Uh huh," I respond. "But if you'd just check with the Pentagon, this could be cleared up and you could be on your merry way."

He frowns, opens his mouth as if to say something, and then changes his mind and shuts it again. My mobile phone goes off.

"Can I get that?" I ask him. The Colonel walks back in before blue-eyes has a chance to answer me.

"Whose phone?" he asks.

"Mine, can I get it?"

"No."

"You know," I tell him, "you're great guy, Colonel. You married?"

"Divorced."

"I can't imagine why." I take a deep breath as my phone goes to voice mail. "Look, Colonel, we are really getting nowhere here. I know you don't believe me, so what can I tell you that you will believe?" He looks at me strangely so I continue, "No, really, give me an explanation for what happened that you believe, I'll pretend it's the truth and we can all leave here happy."

He leans back on his chair and folds his arms staring at me.

"Or we can just sit here forever, either way. I think I've lost the will to care," I conclude and mimic his posture – as far as I can with my hands still in cuffs.

We sit in silence for five minutes, just staring at one another. I know what I'm doing, I hope. At some point he is going to have to call that number, or, more likely, call his boss who will call the Pentagon himself. Until he does that, any further conversation is pretty useless anyway.

Someone knocks on the van door and Dr blue-eyes answers. I can hear a suspiciously familiar voice outside the van asking to see Colonel O'Neill and, lo and behold, in walks Faith's Mr "tall, dark and muscles" although I suppose he is Captain "tall, dark and muscles" really.

O'Neill is standing in front of me, blocking me slightly from view – now I ask you, is it really necessary for anyone to be that tall? No seriously, I feel like I'm in the land of giants. Doctor blue-eyes is nearly as tall as the Colonel and as for 'Murray', Mr silent, I feel like I'd need a step-ladder to talk to him.

"Sir," he starts hesitantly, "there's something you should know, except … it's classified and I don't have the, I mean, I can't say anything, but …" OK, I thought that the Council folks had the babbling thing down well, but babble in a military tone – different.

I lean slightly to one side so that he can see me. "Hello Graham," I say quietly. I have to say it is quite amusing to see the Colonel whip his head round and gape at me like that. Huh, teach him to dismiss me as a dangerous crank!

"Oh!" Captain babble says. "Oh, you do know then. Because I have read all of your reports and you didn't mention HSTs once so I assumed you didn't. But you must know if you know enough to call in the Council."

I decide to put an end to his misery. "Um, Graham," I start, "we weren't exactly called in." and I lift my hands to show him the handcuffs. The impact of what he has just said hits him, so I continue, "Yep. Sorry Captain, that little secret identity has been blown out of the water a bit now." OK, maybe I'm cruel but I hardly got any sleep in Cape Town after he hooked up with Faith.

"Then …" he starts.

"Yes, Graham. Faith and I are here on Council business and your little buddies are getting in the way."

"Faith's here too?" he asks.

At that point the low rumblings from the rear compartment of the van suddenly reach audible level and Faith's questioning of so-called-Murray's parentage can be clearly heard. "She's back there," I point out, in case his intelligence had dropped as low as his new colleague's seems to be.

At this point the Colonel explodes, "Oh, for crying out loud! Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on here?"

"It's quite simple, Colonel," I point out, maybe a little snippily. "As Captain Miller can tell you, Faith and I are part of an international organisation that is officially sanctioned by the leaders of a number of countries, including the President of the United States, to take care of these sort of things. Captain Miller has worked with our organisation before and knows both Faith and myself, although, in my case, not intimately."

Graham reddens slightly, "Um …" he starts.

"The two of you were loud, Graham. And the walls in that hotel were paper-thin. Don't try and deny it. Anyway, that is beside the point. Colonel, if you contact your superior officer and tell him we are here and to check with the Joint Chiefs, I think you will find this matter will be cleared up and you can be on your merry way and leave this to the professionals." OK, maybe I was being a lot snippy there, but I don't like having guns pointed at me, and I'm definitely not a handcuff fan. Although I suppose I could change my mind if Dr blue-eyes asked nicely.

The Colonel splutters indignantly for a moment while Dr blue-eyes rocks back in surprise.

"And could someone please get me out of these bloody handcuffs!" I add for good measure.

"They really aren't a threat, sir," Graham tells O'Neill. "And I think the call might be useful." He turns back to me and continues, "There is something more going on here, that you don't know. I honestly think we are going to have to work together on this one."

"Oh, joy," I respond, sinking my head down on the table. "This is going to be such fun."


End file.
